Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 13

"A Revolutionary Attraction": On Pope Francis and the wounded warriors of the Sexual Revolution

"A Revolutionary Attraction | Stephen Adubato | Homiletic & Pastoral Review

On Pope Francis’ vision of the field hospital for the wounded warriors of the Sexual Revolution

Americans have been living in an historical moment during which their existential awareness of what it means to be human has been drastically altered. Many of these changes are the consequence of a more extensive series of shifts in approaches to questions of morality, society, and work which began at the dawn of the Modern Era. A significant road marker in the trajectory of the Modern Era’s legacy was the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. This watershed moment in history has left such an indelible mark on the collective psyche of our society that it has made its way into the American legal system; this has been most recently attested to by the Supreme Court’s decision to adjust the legal definition of marriage so that this institution would be extended to couples of the same sex.

The Sexual Revolution stands in a truly provoking position beside the Catholic Church—it provokes all people in contemporary society to ask what is at stake in their lives, and what will most adequately satisfy their needs and desires. The fundamental vocation of all members of the Body of Christ is to respond to the true needs of all people of the world. This has been re-emphasized through the brilliance of a new light which has been cast by the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. Our Holy Father Pope Francis asks us to continue our work of evangelization with a heightened awareness of our Lord’s tender embrace of sinners, with a renewed remembrance of his gaze of mercy. Francis calls the Church to be “a field hospital after the battle.”1 What does it mean for the baptized to be doctors, nurses, and caretakers in the aftermath of the battle that has been waged by the Sexual Revolution? To propose a worldview that is often characterized as being archaic and even hateful in our modern milieu would require us to approach this task with great attention and nuance. Our anxiety in front of a seemingly Herculean task ought to find consolation in the witnesses of numerous faithful Christians in the Middle East who are facing persecution at the hands of the Islamic State. Their willingness to die for the sake of the Faith is not born of a devotion to a political or moral ideology, but rather of an awareness of the true nature of reality and of humanity; which are contingent upon, and thus meaningless without, the Incarnation of God through his Son, Jesus Christ. It is here that we must begin to respond to the invitation that is the Jubilee Year of Mercy that we respond to the needs of a world so severely impacted by the aftermath of the Sexual Revolution: a witness by an exceptionally fulfilled humanity, born of a life lived for the sake of “Another.”

In order to better understand the essential foundations of the Sexual Revolution, it emerged, in part, as a reaction to a mode of expressing human sexuality that was increasingly accused of being “repressive” and “meaningless.” A largely “puritanical” moral worldview was accused of having reduced the human person’s horizon of freedom and fulfillment. The sexual revolutionaries wanted a way out of this restrictiveness. Supported by scientific and psychological evidence that aimed to prove that sexual repression caused damage to the human person, they defended a “free” expression of sexuality that rejected any moral implications: “sexuality is a pleasurable experience and nothing but that… The therapeutic task consisted in changing the neurotic character into a genital character, and in replacing moral regulation by self-regulation.”2 The Sexual Revolution was preparing to ring in a new era of utopia. The hearts of these revolutionaries longed for this moment after what they perceived to be a period of drought brought on by puritanical legalism, and a reductive definition of the human person. These revolutionaries responded to their thirsty hearts’ fundamental need for liberation by devising a moral worldview (or lack thereof) which corresponded to the need generated by a puritanical proposal of an incomplete, and ultimately repressive, moral worldview.

What does the proposal of the revolutionaries have in common with the proposal of the Church?

Continue reading on the HPR website.

More sex abuse scandals: "We found a culture of secrecy..."

(Photo: us.fotolia.com/Kaspars Grinvalds)

More sex abuse scandals: "We found a culture of secrecy..." | Carl E. Olson | The Dispatch at CWR

But it's not what—or who—you might think it is.

Catholics are understandably weary of hearing about sex abuse scandals. But we mustn't deny what has happened and, sadly, what continues to happen:

“We found a culture of secrecy,” said Carrie Teegardin, a reporter on the paper’s investigative team for the project.

“It’s treated with a sort of secrecy that we don’t see in other arenas when we’re talking about allegations this serious,” she told ABC News. “It’s still swept under the rug in so many cases.”

Some high-profile cases have led to criminal prosecutions.

That is from a July 6th ABC News piece, which in term is about a much longer and in-depth piece recently published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The title? "License to Betray"—with the subhead: "A broken system forgives sexually abusive doctors in every state, investigation finds". The investigative piece is everything you might expect: harrowing, shocking, angering, maddening, and sickening.

ABC News summarizes some key points:

More than 2,400 U.S. doctors have been sanctioned for sexually abusing their patients, according to a new report that, for the first time, surveyed records from all 50 states and reveals the nationwide scope of a problem that may be almost as far-reaching as the scandal involving Catholic priests.

State medical boards, which oversee physicians, allowed more than half the sanctioned doctors to keep their licenses even after the accusations of sexual abuse were determined to be true, according to a yearlong investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

This comes about nine years after the Associated Press ran an in-depth report about sexual misconduct in public schools in the U.S.:

Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love.

An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic. There are 3 million public school teachers nationwide, most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators _ nearly three for every school day _ speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.

Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims. And no one _ not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments _ has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.

The parallels to the cases of predator doctors are striking and sickening, as described in the AJC piece:

How do doctors get away with exploiting patients for years? Some victims say nothing. Intimidated, confused or embarrassed, they fear that no one will take their word over a doctor’s. Colleagues and nurses stay silent.

Hospitals and health care organizations brush off accusations or quietly push doctors out, the investigation found, without reporting them to police or licensing agencies. ...

Physician-dominated medical boards gave offenders second chances. Prosecutors dismissed or reduced charges, so doctors could keep practicing and stay off sex offender registries. Communities rallied around them.

Predators are adept at finding positions of power and authority; they are willing and able to live double lives and to use their positions to control, manipulate, and abuse.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Dallas, Cupich, Sarah, Kondo, Francis, the Reign of Gay, and more

 Dallas, Cupich, Sarah, Kondo, Francis, the Reign of Gay, and more | Carl E. Olson | CWR

Trigger warning: This new edition of "Carl's Cuts" is filled with opinions and facts that will challenge the dominant paradigm while shamelessly peddling my two new books.

• Yesterday, I had already written most of what follows below before the news of the shootings in Dallas, Texas, began to break. I don't have much to say about that at the moment except, of course, that I am praying for those killed and injured in such an evil fashion. Last night, I heard a politician on television making a plea for "unity" and stating that American "needs to come together as nation". My response, as cynical or harsh as it might sound, is that the ship sailed on those clichéd exhortations a long time ago; they simply don't mean much or really accomplish anything. I've already seen the usual articles by the usual finger-pointing experts insisting the blame be placed on guns, as if specific people didn't make a free choice to commit acts of evil. As the Daily Mail reports:

Before he died however, the gunman told the hostage negotiator his motivations behind the attack. 'The suspect said he was upset about Black Lives Matter. He said he was upset about the recent police shootings of black suspects. He said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers,' Dallas Police Chief David Brown revealed at a 7:30am press conference.

We need not dismiss the understandable questions and concerns about police brutality and racial tensions in simply noting that the actions in Dallas reflect, at their heart, a profound spiritual crisis and a clear choosing of evil over good.

• From Saint Augustine: "Wherefore the man who lives according to God, and not according to man, ought to be a lover of good, and therefore a hater of evil. And since no one is evil by nature, but whoever is evil is evil by vice, he who lives according to God ought to cherish towards evil men a perfect hatred, so that he shall neither hate the man because of his vice, nor love the vice because of the man, but hate the vice and love the man. For the vice being cursed, all that ought to be loved, and nothing that ought to be hated, will remain." (The City of God, 14, 6).

• After the news came out yesterday morning that Abp. Blaise Cupich of Chicago was named by Pope Francis to the Congregation for Bishops, veteran Vatican reporter Francis X. Rocca tweeted: "The pope has named Archbishop Cupich of Chicago to Vatican's congregation for bishops, a sign of where he intends to move US episcopate". And where is that, exactly? To be rather blunt about it, Abp. Cupich's record, as it were, is underwhelming at best. He almost destroyed the seminaries in his two previous stops (Rapid City, SD, and Spokane, WA), and his record in Spokane was, in sum, anemic. Perhaps because he was hardly ever actually in the diocese, as I reported early last year:

The overall sense, expressed in varying degrees of detail, is that Cupich's time in Spokane was quite disappointing and frustrating, especially for those looking for vibrant, clear, and accessible leadership. Those familiar with Cupich's schedule and activities say that he was often out of the diocese for long periods of time, even more so than the amount of time Skylstad traveled while president of the USCCB. When Cupich was in the diocese, he was not readily available, rarely meeting with diocesan priests, especially not on an individual basis, although he apparently met often with certain, older Jesuit priests at Gonzaga.

And that is one of the more mild criticisms. Cupich is often described as "pastoral", but I've talked to some two dozen people who have first-hand knowledge of his style, and none of them use that word or anything similar to it. Quite the contrary. For more, see my editorial "A Tale of Two Bishops" (Feb 2015).

• Cardinal Robert Sarah's recent address "Towards An Authentic Implementation of 'Sacrosanctum Concilium'" seems to have caused a bit of a stir in a number of circles. It certainly deserves some attention as it frankly addresses many of the failures of the liturgical revolution wrought in the name of the Second Vatican Council. The biggest point of discussion is, of course, facing liturgical East. CRUX's article "Cardinal’s call for eastward stance at Mass stirs debate" is indicative of that focus; the piece also suggests the sort of nervous feet shuffling in some corners:

Although his comments were phrased as suggestions rather than an edict, Sarah’s desire for a return to the ad orientem posture nevertheless has generated wide reaction and debate, in large part because it’s associated with the older Latin Mass in use prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

To be clear, Sarah was not calling for rejection of the post-Vatican II form of the liturgy, but for a more traditional way of celebrating that liturgy by incorporating the ad orientem stance. While the posture was largely abandoned after Vatican II, in principle there’s no reason why it can’t be used in the new liturgy, and in a handful of dioceses around the world doing so is already common.

The piece does not quote Sacrosanctum Concilium's directive for rejecting the ad orientem stance, but that's only because no such directive is in the document. Many Catholics know this, but a surprising number of them do not. This came home to me a couple of years ago when the men's reading group I've helped lead for over a decade read and discussed the Council's four Constitutions (Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, Gaudium et Spes, and Sacrosanctum Concilium); several of the men were rather surprised by what was and was not in the document on the Sacred Liturgy. To say that facing liturgical East was "largely abandoned" after the Council is an interesting way of putting it, as the change was part of a most dubious, even radical, reworking of the Western Mass by various experts and committees. As Fr. Uwe Michael Lang put it in his important book Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer (Ignatius Press, 2009; second edition):

Continue reading on The Dispatch on the CWR site.

The fearless wit and wisdom of Fr. George William Rutler

(Photo of Fr. Rutler: EWTN/YouTube)

The fearless wit and wisdom of Fr. George William Rutler | K. V. Turley | Catholic World Report

Fr. Rutler’s writing is filled with fearlessness, and it is the best type of fearlessness: a willingness to perceive the truth of matters.

For three decades or more, Father George William Rutler has been an eloquent contributor to thought at the intersection—or is it the collision point?—where the secular meets with the divine. Ignatius Press has just published He Spoke to Us: Discerning God in People and Events, a collection of Fr. Rutler’s essays and talks drawn from the last few years. Many of these pieces have appeared in Crisis Magazine, where Fr. Rutler is more an institution than simply a regular columnist. Nevertheless, as he himself admits in his introductory note, essay collections are never an easy sell to publishers. In his case, I suspect, it was not so hard. His work is avidly, at times rapturously, received by an audience that has grown ever more enthusiastic about the writing and thought of this New York pastor.

That said, there remains an air of mystery about the priest. His erudition is so dazzling that it is hard at times to see the man behind it. Perhaps that is as it should be, as it is his words and the impassioned thoughts that often lie just beneath the surface that really matter.
While reading this latest collection, an image came to mind: a dinner party of the best kind: convivial, excellent food and drink, and the promise of good conversation, the sort that sparkles as much as the fine wines on offer. And it is then there is a ‘knock’ at the door, ushering in our guest—Fr. George William Rutler.

Just to be clear, I have never met Fr. Rutler. So what follows is based solely on observations drawn from his essays. Nevertheless, within them there is a pattern to discern. Take his essay entitled "Humpty Dumpty’s Wedding". Its opening is a discourse on surely one of the priest’s more engaging hobbies, working out how many handshakes he is away from the likes of Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, Queen Elizabeth or Lewis Carroll:

Recently at the opera during an intermission of “Turandot,” I put several grateful people three handshakes from Puccini.  Alas, a manager of a sporting goods store near Grand Central Terminal was unmoved when I told him that he was now four handshakes from Felix Mendelssohn.

All great fun, but things soon develop. Fr. Rutler speculates on how many handshakes he is from the real life girl, Alice Liddell, who inspired Carroll’s fictional Alice. Then we move on to one of Carroll’s other creations, Humpty Dumpty, who states that when he uses a word it means exactly what he wants it to. From then on we are wrong-footed. What started out as a parlour game suddenly turns serious as the implications of words used in this way are then played out in the sphere of politics and lawmaking. The party atmosphere disappears as Fr. Rutler takes this abuse of language and brings it chillingly up to date in relation to the ongoing redefinition of marriage.  

At this point, our charming guest has begun to attract the attention and the curiosity of all gathered at the dinner party.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

The Joys and Challenges of Filming the Story of Salvation History

The Joys and Challenges of Filming the Story of Salvation History | CWR Staff

Steve Ray, who has been working for 16 years on the ambitious "Footprints of God" series, discusses his vision, describes the difficulties, and asks for assistance as the project nears the finish line.

Author and apologist Stephen Ray (CatholicConvert.com) along with his wife Janet, entered the Catholic Church in 1994, a journey from the Baptist tradition to Catholicism described in Ray's first book, Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church. Since then he has kept busy with giving numerous talks, leading pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Rome, and other locations, and writing more books, including Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church, and St. John's Gospel: A Bible Study and Commentary. 

Steve and Janet have also kept busy working on writing, filming, editing, and producing the award-winning video series for Ignatius Press titled ”The Footprints of God”. The Rays and their crew have completed eight of the ten films and are busy making preparations for the final two films, including raising money to help with the costs of filming on location in countries including Israel, Turkey, Italy, and Egypt. 

Catholic World Report recently caught up with Steve shortly before he and Janet left the country to lead a pilgrimage in Rome and Assisi. 

CWR: You’ve been working on the “Footprints of God” film project for 16 years. Where did the idea come from and how did you get started on such an ambitious project?

Steve Ray: It started in the middle of the night around 2 a.m. Without any forethought I woke up with a start. I sat up in the pitch dark and grabbed my wife and began to shake her, "Janet, Janet! Wake up, we have to make a ten-part video series on the history of salvation from a Catholic perspective!" I had woken her up so abruptly she she was shaking from fright. When she finally realized what I was saying she responded, “What? Are you crazy? I thought the house was on fire or you were having a heart attack. You woke me up in the middle of the night and scared me half to death to tell us we have to make movie? We can't even take good pictures—how does God expect us to make movies? You're crazy, go back to sleep."

She rolled over and went back to sleep but I was wide awake—and I was on fire. For the rest of the night I was at my computer with fingers flying, getting it all down out of my head before it disappeared. The ideas flowed like a waterfall and by the time the sun came up I had the whole outline of the series figured out, along with the title. It was going to be called The Footprints of God: The Story of Salvation from Abraham to Augustine. It would consist of ten parts and each one would explain how God has come to his people to offer redemption and salvation—to the point that he even got his own feet dirty doing it!

CWR: How did Ignatius Press get involved in the project?

Steve Ray: We called Ignatius Press to tell them our idea. They invited my wife and I out to San Francisco for lunch and a meeting. I presented my idea. By the end of the lunch we had their approval and the funding for the first movie Peter, Keeper of the Keys. Within six weeks we were flying over the land of the Bible in helicopters getting the aerial footage, and six weeks later we were filming Peter in Israel and Rome. We are grateful from the bottom of our hearts for the unflagging support and funding from Fr. Joseph Fessio, Mark Brumley, and Tony Ryan of Ignatius Press.

These movies couldn’t be like anything else out there. We wanted them to be unique and one of kind—and they are! 

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

New from Ignatius Press: "The Heart of Holiness: Friendship with God and Others"

Now available from Ignatius Press:

The Heart of Holiness: Friendship with God and Others

by Fr. Gary Lauenstein

Reflecting on Scripture, writings of the saints, and his own experience, Redemptorist Father Gary Lauenstein demonstrates that the heart of holiness is friendship with God, who is love. As a result, our everyday experiences of our friendships with others are our stepping stones to holiness.

With simplicity and grace, this book helps the reader to meditate on his understanding of himself, others, and God, and to look at his relationships in the light of their purpose--to give and to receive the love of God. The author, who is an experienced and certified spiritual director, examines the importance, in any relationship, of attentiveness, communication, disinterestedness, and joy. He shows how our path to God passes through and encompasses our friendships with one another.

Fr. Gary Lauenstein, C.Ss.R., has been a priest for forty-five years. His ministry with the North American Redemptorists has included teaching Spanish in a high school seminary, encouraging vocations, and directing novices. He has certification as a spiritual director. Currently he is a parish priest at St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in Whittier, CA.

"In this humble, graceful treatise on love and friendship, Fr. Lauenstein deftly embroiders the fabric of Scripture and the Church Fathers with many insightful anecdotes and illustrations from his own long experience, showing how anyone--yourself included--can become clothed in holiness."
— Patrick Madrid, Author, Life Lessons: Fifty Things I Learned in My First Fifty Years

"Filled with wisdom and anecdotes, this is a wonderful and unique book on holiness. With quotes from Aristotle, G. K. Chesterton, John Paul II, and many others this profound yet very readable and practical work presents beautiful reflections on the invitation to deep friendship with God. I highly recommend it!"
— Vinny Flynn, Author, 7 Secrets of Divine Mercy

"After examining the nature of authentic human friendship, Fr. Lauenstein uncovers many important parallels to our relationship with God, and concludes that the heart of holiness lies in an intimate relationship of love that is able to converse easily and often with God."
— Fr. Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R., St. Charles Borromeo Seminary

"This book is a great read to help us encounter the unconditional love of God, and develop a deeper and lasting friendship with Jesus Christ."
— Sr. Susan Fischer, O.S.F., Redemptorist Retreat Center

Spielberg's enchanting take on Dahl's endearing BFG

Spielberg's enchanting take on Dahl's endearing BFG | Lauren Enk Mann | CWR

While Steven Spielberg apparently couldn’t resist inserting some strange and unnecessary additions, "BFG" is refreshingly free of agenda and is filled with spectacular visual details.

Film adaptations of storyteller Roald Dahl’s work have always been rather hit or miss; his quirky sense of humor, fanciful stories, and typically one-dimensional characters are difficult to translate effectively to the screen. Moreover, Dahl’s original tales are often punctuated by a morbidity akin to Grimm’s fairy tales and foreign to modern children’s stories, and are thus difficult to recreate convincingly as family film fare. Nonetheless, many other quirky geniuses, like Tim Burton and Wes Anderson, have tried their hands at adapting his work, from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to Matilda to Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Now, The BFG, perhaps the most endearing of Dahl’s tales, gets its turn at the hands of Hollywood’s moguls, in a summer blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg. And Spielberg’s BFG neither departs wildly from nor adheres slavishly to Dahl’s story, making it about as enjoyable and faithful an adaptation of the book as could possibly have been hoped.

From the start, the film’s obvious crowning achievement is certainly the BFG himself. The homely giant is a masterpiece of animation, with his giant wiggling ears and his gangly legs balancing out his soulful eyes and kindly wrinkled face. His most lovable trait—his mixed up way of speaking—is reproduced here exactly as in the book, voiced to perfection by Mark Rylance. Loping about the London streets at night, hooded and cloaked, with a bag of dreams and a trumpet to blow them into the rooms of sleeping children, the BFG is a combination of mythical creature and homely secret philanthropist. Easily keeping pace with the larger-than-life BFG is Ruby Barnhill, absolutely perfect as the intrepid and practical bookworm orphan named Sophie. Barnhill captures Sophie’s bravery and obvious precociousness (how many ten year olds typically read Nicholas Nickleby?) with innocent and unaffected charm.

Yet it is the chemistry between the appealingly articulate Sophie and the fumbling giant that arguably keeps the film afloat in Dahl’s at times ridiculous plotline. The bravehearted and intelligent little girl is a fitting companion and counterpoint to the misspeaking, kind-hearted Big Friendly Giant; like him, she is something of an outcast, awake alone at night. He treats her with gentleness and kindness, and she in turn gives him respect and encouragement. While at times their relationship may wander into the saccharine, Sophie’s youthful boldness and the BFG’s tender, grandfatherly care for her makes their friendship blossom onscreen, even when threatened by the destructive invasions of the BFG’s home by the oafish, man-eating giants like Bloodbottler and Fleshlumpeater.

In this unlikely friendship, moral themes regarding courage, transgression, and reparation make an appearance.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

10 Things You Should Know about Catholics and the American Founding

(Left) Sculpture of Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence, in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. (Right) "The Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775" by John Trumball (1786). Images via Wiki Commons.

10 Things You Should Know about Catholics and the American Founding | Bradley J. Birzer | CWR

In celebrating the 240th anniversary of American independence and the ratification of the Declaration of Independence, it’s worth remembering the role that Catholics and Catholicism played in 1776.

In my essay “10 Things You Should Know About the American Founding” I focused on some little-known facts about the American Founding in general. The final three of those “10 things” mentioned Catholics and Catholicism, including how “every colony had some form of anti-Catholic law, except for Pennsylvania. The farther north one journeyed, the stronger the anti-Catholicism became.” This is not to suggest that Catholicism is incompatible with the Founding, but simply to note that Catholics were usually, at best, the odd men out and were to many colonists the dire symbol of all that was wrong with the world.

In celebrating the 240th anniversary of American independence and the ratification of the Declaration of Independence, it’s worth remembering the role that Catholics and Catholicism played in 1776.

1. With the exception of Maryland—but only for a bit—each of the English colonies along the North American coastline despised and feared Roman Catholics as well as Catholicism. For most English Protestants, whether Reformed and Presbyterian or low-Church Anglican, Catholicism represented the corruption of the Christian faith. Catholics, far from being the brethren of Protestants, were the worst enemies—far worse than pagans or even Muslims. Why? Because Catholics, in the eyes of those Protestants, should have known better; that is, they should have seen the errors of their Catholic ways. In many respects, it was a case of nearness creating division. In New England, beginning in the 1640s, no citizen could enter a church on a Sunday morning without bearing both a bible and a firearm. When service ended, the men of the congregation secured the area before allowing women and children to leave the church, just in case Catholics might be out raiding that day. Even as late as the American Revolution, New England militia men screamed, “No king, no pope” as they charged into enemy lines.

2. Protestants, however, were rarely tolerant of even other Protestants; Calvinists, for example, often hated Baptists as much as they did Catholics. Far from the “land of the free” that our textbooks usually portray, colonies sought not religious freedom and liberty, but rather religious autonomy. That is, they wanted freedom to worship as they saw fit, but they certainly did not believe that other sects should have the same rights. In this, the first century and a half of American colonization (with only a very few exceptions) were defined by a whole variety of intolerances. Because the frontier was huge, however, such tolerances could be alleviated—at least as long as you were willing to move west, away from the respectable folks. From the 1600s through 1774, America was really a sea of intolerance with islands of tolerance. Your freedom was essentially the freedom to choose which intolerance you liked best.

3. Of the 13 original colonies, only Pennsylvania and Maryland offered anything that we might today recognize as religious toleration.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Coming soon from Ignatius Press: Peter Kreeft's new book on St. Augustine's "Confessions"

Now available for pre-order from Ignatius Press:

I Burned for Your Peace: Augustine's Confessions

by Peter Kreeft

The popular author and philosopher Peter Kreeft presents inspiring insights on one of the most beloved Christian classics of all time, Augustine's Confessions. What makes Kreeft's work different from many other books on the Confessions is that it is a commentary on key excerpts from the Confessions, not just an anthology of them.

But it is not a scholarly commentary, or a specialized book about Augustine's theology or philosophy. Kreeft offers the kind of commentary that is a "spiritual probing", an unpacking of the riches of the text. It is existential, personal, devotional, as well as thought-provoking. It focuses on the big ideas in the Confessions that readers remember and cherish the most.

The Confessions is a dramatic book because it is about the individual soul choosing between eternal life and death. It is written in the form of a prayer to God; we are privileged to overhear the intimate conversation, and learn from Augustine about how to pray. Kreeft's commentary helps us to do just that. Medieval statues of Augustine often have him holding an open book in one hand and a burning heart in the other, symbolizing the title of this book, and his burning desire for God.

Peter Kreeft offers his brilliant, penetrating and practical insights on the classic work by St. Augustine that is considered by many as one of the most beautiful and poetic books ever written.

Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, is one of the most widely read Christian authors of our time. His many bestselling books cover a vast array of topics in spirituality, theology, and philosophy. They include How to Be Holy, Practical Theology, Back to Virtue, Because God Is Real, You Can Understand the Bible, Angels and Demons, Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing, and A Summa of the Summa.

"Two teachers we all know and trust enter into a dialogue in order to bring forth a Confessions for our day. Peter Kreeft encounters Augustine's pleas, perceptiveness, and prayers as a 'rehearsal' for our own questions and heart's desires. With Kreeft's usual wit and wisdom, St. Augustine comes to life to speak to the higher things, the last things, and the eternal things of our own life's journey."
— Fr. David Meconi, S.J., Editor, The Confessions: St. Augustine of Hippo

"We have lost sight that Christianity is foundationally a mystical and not a moral religion..."

Tedmund Chan, the Associate Editor of the Thomas International Center, recently interviewed Fr. David Meconi, SJ, about Called To Be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification (Ignatius Press, 2016), which he co-edited with Carl E. Olson:

A recipient of the pontifical license in Patrology from the University of Innsbruck and a D. Phil in Ecclesiastical History from Oxford University, Fr. Meconi is currently Assistant Professor of Early Christianity in the Department of Theological Studies at St. Louis  University, Director of the Edmund Campion Centre for Catholic Studies, and editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review. He is also a former president of the Jesuit Philosophical Association, a Fellow at the Augustinian Institute at Villanova University, and member of the ecclesiastical board of the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College. His recent publications include The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification (Catholic University of America Press), the forthcoming The Enemy Within: Augustine on Sin and Self-Sabotage, and his editing of the Cambridge Companion to Augustine and of On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Cultivating a Contemporary Theology of Creation.

Fr. Meconi, many Latin Catholics are suspicious of deification or theosis as not being a properly Christian teaching. Could you please give us a short explanation of what the Catholic teaching on deification is? Why isn’t it more familiar to Catholics in the West (or in the United States)?

We have lost sight that Christianity is foundationally a mystical and not a moral religion: we are saved not so much by what we do or not do but who we become. Galatians 2:19-20 is a perfect snapshot of this: Paul says he is now dead to the law because he is alive in Christ and it is Christ who is now living his fully human life.  The Catholic teaching on deification (look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church §460 for an excellent synopsis)​ maintains that God becomes human so we humans can become godly–no longer having to live a merely fallen life as incomplete and sinful humans, we can now partake of God’s own life and become immortal, perfectly wise, loving, and so on.​

How would you respond to the claim that the teaching of deification is not important or relevant to the Christian moral and spiritual life, as we’ve managed without it for so long? What does deification add to our understanding of the Christian life as being rooted in charity, the sacraments, and life in the Church?

Everything is grace, everything. In the Gospel of John, for example, Jesus Christ makes it quite clear that without him we can do nothing, absolutely nothing (Jn 15:5).  Deification is the honest admittance that we are all in need of grace, not only for our mere existence, and not simply for the glory of being human, but especially for our sanctification which makes us God’s own sons and daughters.  The sacraments are the channels of this new union, as they continue Christ’s own incarnate presence in the world.​

It seems that quite a few books on deification by scholars both Catholic and Protestant have been published recently in the English-speaking world. The attention being given by Western Christian scholars to deification may indeed be an indication that something is missing in contemporary presentations of the Gospel. How does this particular volume of essays serve to change that?

Continue reading on the Thomas International Center website.